Digital transmission of signals has become widespread. To this end, a variety of digital transmission media are available which have different transmission characteristics and different information capacity. In order to make efficient use of the various transmission media, a hierarchy of transmission systems has been developed which operates at different transmission bit rates. In North America, the hierarchy includes the DS1 signal transmitted at 1.544 Mb/sec, the DS2 signal transmitted at 6.312 Mb/sec and the DS3 signal transmitted at 44.736 Mb/sec on multiple T1 channels. In Europe, a similar but different hierarchy includes multiple E1 channels transmitted at 2.048 Mb/sec.
The digital signals to be transmitted over a medium enter and leave the digital hierarchy by means of a signal conversion apparatus. In order to go from one digital transmission rate to a different digital transmission rate, one or more multiplexing steps may be required.
For high capacity transmission, it is desirable to efficiently combine or multiplex a plurality of one or more of the digital signals in the hierarchy without the need for intermediate multiplexer (demultiplexer) stages or a number of different multiplexing (demultiplexing) schemes. Additionally, it is equally desirable to efficiently add and/or drop one or more digital signals of one or more digital transmission bit rates without the need for multiple multiplexing and/or demultiplexing processes.
There are several known methods utilized to combine or multiplex digital signals such as Plesiochronous Digital Hierarchy (PDH), Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH), and asynchronous data with packet data. Some methods include Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) or mapping the signals into a Synchronous Optical Network (SONET) or an SDH frame. These methods are subject to several known problems. For example, in the asynchronous mode, ATM information may be transferred in standard-length 53-byte ATM cells. However, the payload transferred on the radio path does not usually measure 48 bytes, i.e. 384 bits, wherefore padding bits are needed. In addition, if the payload in a block on the radio path is longer than 48 bytes, the content of one block must be transmitted in several ATM cells. Thus, ATM mapping generally is not the most efficient method of utilizing bandwidth.
Another problem with ATM and SONET/SDH mapping is that the addition of padding bits and/or division of the payload between a plural number of cells adds to the processing of the information to be transferred when the transmission network is entered or exited. Such characteristics are undesirable in point-to-point radio applications which require efficient bandwidth utilization and low latency per link.
Thus, a need exists in the art to efficiently combine or multiplex digital signals, i.e., T1 or E1, having various digital hierarchies with packet or Ethernet signals for transmission as a single data stream. It is therefore an object of the present disclosure to provide a novel method of transmitting data in a communication system that is adapted to receive a first type of data having two data streams with different clocks and a second type of data. The novel method comprises the steps of receiving data from the first and second types of sources, providing a frame having plural bit positions, synchronizing the received first type of data thereby generating a synchronized data rate, assigning the synchronized first type of data in ones of the bit positions of the frame, distributing the second type of data in ones of the unassigned bit positions as a function of the synchronized data rate, and transmitting the frame.
It is a further object of the present disclosure to provide a novel method for transmitting communication signals in a predetermined frame format. The novel method comprises the steps of receiving data from a plurality of sources including a first and second type of data source, synchronizing the received first type of data source to thereby generate a synchronized data rate, and transmitting the synchronized first type of data and received second type of data in a predetermined frame format whereby the packet data is assigned in the predetermined frame format as a function of the synchronized data rate.
It is another object of the present disclosure to provide a novel method where data from plural PDH sources and from a packet source are received, assigned to bit positions in a frame, and transmitted as a single data stream whereby the data received from the packet source is arranged in the data stream as a function of a synchronized data rate of the received PDH sources.
It is still another object of the present disclosure to provide a novel method of combining data from plural first type of data sources and at least one second type of data source. The novel method comprises the steps of synchronizing the plural first type of data sources to thereby generate a synchronized data rate, providing a frame having plural bit positions, assigning the synchronized first type of data in ones of the bit positions of the frame, and arranging the second type of data in the frame as a function of the synchronized data rate to thereby combine data from different types of data sources.
It is an object of the present disclosure to provide a novel method of transmitting data received from plural sources that are not synchronized with each other and a packet source as a single data stream. The novel method comprises the steps of synchronizing data received from the plural sources that are not synchronized with each other to thereby generate a synchronized data rate, providing a frame format comprising a plurality of frames each frame having plural sub-frames the number of which correlates to the number of received plural sources that are not synchronized with each other and each sub-frame comprising a plurality of blocks, assigning the synchronized data and data received from the packet source in bit positions of the frame format, and transmitting the assigned data as a single data stream.
It is also an object of the present disclosure to provide a novel system where data from sources having different synchronisms and packet sources is transmitted in a frame format as a single data stream the improvement wherein the packet data is arranged in said data stream as a function of a data rate of said sources having different synchronisms.
These objects and other advantages of the disclosed subject matter will be readily apparent to one skilled in the art to which the disclosure pertains from a perusal of the claims, the appended drawings, and the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments.